IT managers need to adopt ‘creative destruction’ policy

With IT budgets under pressure, CIOs need to tear up the rule book and adopt a policy of ‘creative destruction’ a leading Gartner analyst told Computer Weekly recently. With 67 percent of IT budgets used for ‘keeping the lights on’ and a further 19 percent supporting growth of current business, only 14 percent is allocated to ‘genuine transformational IT’, said Dave Aron, Gartner fellow in the analyst’s CIO research group, who recommends organisations use ‘creative destruction’ to get rid of unnecessary systems, processes and costs. This will mean more consolidation and a move towards converged infrastructures and the use of cloud computing. It will also leave plenty of room for genuine creativity and innovation. Read the published article here www.computer2000.co.uk/computerweekly

Tech Data to acquire distribution business of Man and Machine, boosting Datech presence across Europe

Tech Data has entered into an agreement to acquire certain assets pertaining to the Value Added Distribution (VAD) business of Man and Machine, a leading VAD in the design software market in Germany, UK, France, Italy, Switzerland, the enelux, Poland and Romania. The agreement, which is subject to certain conditions being met and the merger approval of the European Commission, should be completed by the end of October. With this agreement, Datech, Tech Data’s design software division, strengthens its position as Autodesk’s leading VAD in Europe, establishes a presence in Benelux and Romania, and extends its product portfolio to include the Autodesk software for the manufacturing industry in Italy, France, UK and Poland. In addition, a number of highly skilled and qualified professionals will join Datech’s team across Europe. ‘This agreement is further evidence of Tech Data’s strategy to grow its specialist divisions by making selective acquisitions in technology areas and geographies where we can continue to grow profitably for our shareholders and enhance the service and support to our customers.’ said Nestor Cano, President, Tech Data Europe. Following the acquisition, Man and Machine intends to transform its business into a value added reseller leveraging its knowledge and expertise in the market. Mike Appel Director of Datech Europe, said: ‘We are very excited about this agreement. It fully supports our strategy to expand and enhance our service and specialised added value to the Autodesk VAR channel. We are committed to make this a great success for our VAR customers, Autodesk and for Datech.’

Western Digital set to acquire Hitachi GST… but what does this mean for the industry?

The acquisition of Hitachi GST by Western Digital could be seen in two ways; as a positive move that will create new investment and opportunity; or as a further consolidation of the disk storage vendor community that will play into the hands of the biggest players. The disk storage market is an extremely competitive, global, volume business. According to market research firm iSuppli, WD has about 31% of the market, closely followed by Seagate with 29%, while Hitachi has around 18%. So, post acquisition, the WD-Hitachi alliance will have almost half of the market.

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